


Going Primal

by miilky



Series: welcome to the family way [3]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Parents, F/M, Family Fluff, Freeform, Gen, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Sibling Love, adoption au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 03:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6268555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miilky/pseuds/miilky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When big ears are in the family any sound is hard to muffle out. It's especially true for silent sounds in the dark. If anyone's worried, please don't. The kids are going to be alright. Nick and Judy will make sure of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Primal

“ _What_ were they doing?”

Lynn didn't cast her stare away from her textbook, “Doing _what_ Betsy?”

“What do you mean _what_ were they doing?” Tyson interjected, and his wary stare didn't deter neither of the girls. Cooper was busy downing his seaweed-nutmet milkshake, and Tyson grimaced, never understanding what good his brother tasted in the unusual concoction. 

Betsy fluffed, and her tall ears twitched in agitation, “You know what I mean. _What_ were they doing?”

Tyson looked to Lynn caught in her textbook, and Cooper looked to Tyson wile pouring another cup of milkshake. His grin was seaweed colored. 

“Oh, come on, _you_ know!” Aware her siblings were deliberately withholding information from her, vital information that would separate her from young-ness, Betsy stomped her long feet in quick succession, anxious and irritated, _"What were they doing?"_

Cooper could've walked away. Being two years older, he was-by technicality, the oldest, but Lynn—as it was, had unwittingly adopted the role and performed it dutifully. He and others flocked to her for guidance and reassurance, especially when their parents were touch and go. There was no shame, and in delight, he watched as her cream cheeks flecked with golden brown brightened. She lowered her head so deeply into her math book that even her irritated brow disappeared on the pages.

Betsy was insistent, and when she wanted something, _anything_ , she usually got it. “Please, please, please, please, _pleeeeaaaaassse_ ,” on her knees she begged, and Lynn groaned at the kitchen table, trying her hardest to remain neutral and indifferent, “everyone else knows, even Patsy!”

“Betsy?” Tyson asked, “How does she know?”

"We heard them at the exact same time a few nights ago, but she won't tell me what it was," she explained bitterly.

"It isn't anything weird about that," Cooper drawled, and he slurped more of his original drink, "you're _hares_. You can hear every weird thing going on in this place, just like Mom, ain't nothing special about that."

“But it was!” Betsy hopped to him, “Patsy got really upset, and wouldn't tell me why. How comes _she_ knows and _I_ don't?"

Tyson winced. Patsy was a reader, a lover of education, and probably recorded more than her share of educational documentaries. Like a starving bear she devoured information greedily, and then processed it like a machine, making sense of it when no one else could. Besty's caught in the moment nature didn't clench her thirst for knowledge, but made it suitable to her interests. She didn't search if she didn't care to search, and unfortunately, this was an instance where she cared a whole lot just because her sister's superiority dangled above her like a dirty fishing lure.

"Tell me!"  
  
"No," Tyson groaned.

"Why not?"

"'Cause you're too little," he explained evenly, getting the same tone their mother used whenever her temper was starting to rise.

"So is Patsy!"

"Well, it isn't my fault Patsy seems to know it. I don't want to be put into a position where I have to tell you anything Madre and Pops wouldn't."

Lynn and Cooper raised their heads at the boiling confrontation. Pinched expressions covered their faces, and quiet communication passed between them as the loud voices drummed inside their heads. It didn't take long for the fateful words to string out in a tired, strung out, absolutely dragged line, “They were mating, Bets. That’s what you heard.”

Tyson sucked in a sharp breath, covering his mouth in horror. Betsy pulled back, tilted her head, and let the gears in her brain work. Work for ten seconds they did until her eyes widened, and her little nose twitched. 

"No, they did not," came the quiet, gasping, disbelieving voice, "they can't."

“What?” Cooper rounded the counter and went to the sink, turning on the water, “Parents can’t have sex?”

“Cooper!”

“Well, rise and shine, they do- _all the time_. Even in the basement.”

“Oh my god, Lynn, _stop_!”

Good, it wasn't as terrible as they expected it would be. At some point or another, while living in this household, they had witnessed the unmentionable now mentioned, and saw it not as the most disgusting act in the world but a disgusting act common in childhood without the waves of guilt and shame. Oh, it was there-the disgust and denial, but was more reassuring than anything else. They were, at last, part of a loving family.

Lynn chewed on her pencil, “Call it primal scenes. Closest animals will ever devolve to their basic, savage instincts.”

Betsy's scrunched face was in deep thought, and she got her cheek and started working it, "But what about babies? How come they don’t have any, you know…like normally.”

“The medicine,” Tyson blurted, and cupped his mouth when three sets of eyes fell on him.

“What are you talking about?” Cooper put the empty cup back into the cabinet, and closed in on the kitchen table, “What medicine?”

Tyson, suddenly aware of how piercing their eyes were, tapped his claws uneasily. He should’ve gone back upstairs, gone back to _Les Micerables_ , and listened to his _Harrington_ playlist on Pawtube. After disposing such interesting information on their footsteps, they weren't going to let him leave until he explained himself, and he mewed lightly, sinking into his chair.

“I heard-by total mistake, Mom and Pops---well, they were talking, discussing matters about body things, you know,” he looked to the ceiling, it was a very nice ceiling with a smooth pinkish-green texture, “and Mom wanted to make sure her medicine was at the pharmacy.”

“What did they say,” Lynn peered, “what’s this medicine have to do anything.”

“I’m not sure, but Pops called it _birth control_ ,” Tyson shrugged, embarrassed and started back at his cereal, ignoring their retreating gazes as they pondered over the words’ meaning. It was curiously thick, floating above their heads like an invisible anchor, and slowly, they pieced together its meaning.

“Birth…well, they haven’t had any of their own.”

“But we are _their own_ ,” Betsy sniffed.

“Not in that way…and if-if they are doing this, if it keeps them from having kids naturally,” Lynn mused and tapped her chin contemplatively with her pencil, “she said, _'When I had you I realized motherhood was for me._ '"

Cooper nodded, “Didn’t say anything about pregnancy.”

“Even if they can’t have babies with each other,” which was common knowledge among their small and steadily growing family, “it doesn't mean they couldn't have babies with…you know, others of their own kind.”

Was it an option? It must have been, and they turned to each other with epiphany stricken eyes. 

“Whoa…,” Cooper whispered.

“That’s love,” Tyson said.

“Real love,” Lynn clarified.

Betsy’s ears twitched, _“They’re coming,_ ” and she scattered out the room, along with Tyson caught in the rush of things, leaving Cooper and Lynn dumbstruck in the kitchen.

Nick and Judy came in side by side, laughing about some irrelevant thing or another. _Finnick?_ Lynn guessed, but there was no telling with her thoughts as jumbled as they were. Cooper was restless, returning to the fridge, and downed poured another cup of seaweed-nutmeg milkshake. Again, she didn’t understand the sweetness he tasted in it.

“Hey!” Judy looked around, “Where’s Betsy and Ty?”

“Upstairs, _bleaching their brain_ ,” Cooper mumbled, “upstairs, dunno what they’re doing.”

“Patsy’s at Charlotte’s slumber party,” Nick rummaged through the fridge, “want anything, Carrots?”

“I’m good, thank you, but-,”

“Jeeze Cooper, you’re still at this stuff,” pulling out the pitcher, Nick sniffed it and closed it swiftly, “I don’t see what you like so much about it.”

“Taste, dear.”

Uncomfortable, extremely comfortable, the eldest two stared at their parents and tried, worked, their minds around the inevitable truth every child faced in their lifetime that concerned their parents’ intimate lives. They glanced at each other, knowing they were glancing at them, and looked at them with tired but happy stares.

“Mom, Dad we love you,” they said in union.

Judy laughed, “And we love you.”

Nick, although sharing the sentiment whole-heartedly, and equally displaying it every day of every month, narrowed his eyes at the two unassuming children, “What did you do?”

“Father of little faith-,”

Lynn slammed her math book shut and stared them directly in the eye, ignoring her own flushing heart and heated nerves, “We love you very much, buy soundproof headphones, the walls have ears, and I am too old to be giving anyone, kit or not, the _talk_ ,” and she scooted the chore backwards and escaped to the confines of her bedroom, finishing the rest of her homework in uneasy solitude.

“Milkshake?" He poured a second drink, and left the kitchen in fear of the rising epiphany that had struck them down so cruelly earlier. 

"Soundproof headphones?" Nick sipped the drink, shivered, and smacked his jaws skeptically, "Not bad."

"Our kids are weird, Nick."

"Nah, they just have overactive imaginations."

It took them approximately two minutes and forty five seconds for them to understand that their imaginations were perfectly suited to their tastes, and the shattering glass that assaulted the floor reached upstair ears without them having to guess why, _"Soundproof headphones."_

**Author's Note:**

> One of my favorite kid-family tropes is the "primal scene" when kids see their parents doing the unmentionable. It's more for the aftermath than the act itself; I blame "That 70s Show." For the record, Lynn, Tyson, and Cooper have caught Nick/Judy in compromising positions, and both cases the children have willfully forgotten they ever happened. The parents have tried to talk to them about those incidents to no avail. 
> 
> Also, recommendations for future installments are open. I don't mind since I have a lot to work with in this AU, and yes, most of them already have backstories planned or in development.
> 
> Lynn-Red Panda (10)
> 
> Tyson-Tigon (10)
> 
> Cooper-Raccoon (named after Sly Cooper) (11)
> 
> Betsy-Artic Hare (8)
> 
> Patsy-Artic Hare (8) 
> 
> I did not know rabbits and hares were the same but not. They belong to the same family and order, but I believe hares are actually, usually, larger than rabbits. This was partially based on the experiences I had with my friends/cousins when growing up; minus the birth control. I believe the older three, or one of them, would be savvy enough to eventually clue on what "Mom's medicine" was.


End file.
